From the ashes, Amazon builds a grocery business
Webvan rises from the dead – as AmazonFresh
The online grocery start-up Webvan may have been the single most expensive flame-out of the dot-com era, blowing through more than US$800 million (HK$6.2 billion) in venture capital and IPO proceeds in just over three years before shutting its doors in 2001.
Twelve years later, though, Webvan is rising from the dead - in the form of an online grocery business called AmazonFresh.
Four key Amazon.com executives - Doug Herrington, Peter Ham, Mick Mountz and Mark Mastandrea - are former Webvan officials who have spent years analysing and fixing the problems that led to the start-up’s demise.
Kiva Systems, the robotics company that Amazon bought last year for US$775 million (HK$6.0 billion) in one of its largest-ever acquisitions, was built on ideas and technologies originally developed at Webvan and is a key part of the AmazonFresh strategy.
Even Webvan’s old Web address, webvan.com, is now part of the Amazon empire.
“We had a lot of Webvan DNA in the room and we drew on that experience a lot,” said Tom Furphy, who helped start AmazonFresh with Herrington and Ham before leaving to become a venture capitalist. “That was a good formula for building the business responsibly.”
Amazon declined to comment for this story, or make any AmazonFresh executives available for interviews.
